Special Issues – FAQs

Special Issues are an important component of Hindawi journals. They focus on topics of contemporary relevance, or provide detailed analysis of a niche issue. See our guide ‘Special Issues: An Overview’ for a step-by-step breakdown of how a Special Issue is compiled.

These are some commonly asked questions about Special Issues. If you have additional comments or questions, please contact us: special.issues@hindawi.com

You should choose a topic which lies close to your own research interests. The topic of the Special Issue must currently be of increasing interest within your field. It should be broad enough to attract a reasonable number of submissions but at the same time narrow enough to provide a focused and cohesive collection of articles.

You might like to browse our recently published and recently opened Special Issues for ideas of suitable topics, and to ensure your proposal differs from any existing Calls for Papers. You might choose an area at the interface of traditional disciplines, or a theme which has recently come to prominence in light of an advance in the field, or a particular societal challenge. Perhaps you’ve noticed a surge in interest in a particular subject at a recent conference, this is good sign that a related proposal will generate significant interest.

The Guest Editors should be recognized experts in their fields and geographically distributed. We prefer that Guest Editors be affiliated with major research institutes and have a reasonable number of well-cited publications related to the topic of the Special Issue. Of course, Guest Editors should have sufficient time to commit to the editorial role, so we ask that no Guest Editor works on more than two Special Issues at the same time.

Special Issue proposals must receive approval from the Editorial Board, who will assess the fit of the suggested topic for the target journal. In addition, Hindawi’s Subject Analytics team will assess the viability of the Special Issue, by measuring the topic’s potential to attract sufficient numbers of submissions for a successful issue. The team will also ensure that Special Issues on very similar topics are not launched concurrently.

Formal approval through the Editorial Board typically takes two to three weeks from submission. Upon approval, we will proceed with the launch and promotion of the Call for Papers. You are also encouraged to conduct your own promotion at the time of launch. See our guide ‘Promoting your Call for Papers’ for more details.

The deadline for submissions is typically set six months from the launch of the Call for Papers.

The Guest Editorial team as a whole is allowed to contribute a maximum of four papers to their Special Issue. Of these four, one introductory Editorial and one long review article are exempt from the journal’s regular Article Processing Charges (see our guide ‘What are Article Processing Charges?’), while the other two articles are subject to standard charges (where applicable).

To ensure an impartial review process, submissions to the Special Issue by the Guest Editors will be handled by members of the journal’s Editorial Board.

We typically allow six months from the initial Call for Papers to the submission deadline, followed by another three months to the first round of reviews. Final publication of the Special Issue normally requires another two months.

If you have any comments or concerns on this process, you should discuss them with your editorial contact at Hindawi.

All Hindawi journals are Open Access publications, providing immediate, worldwide, barrier-free access to the full text of every published article. This increases the visibility and impact of work published in the Special Issue and improves the academic profile of the Guest Editors who contribute to it.

Being a Guest Editor of a Special Issue is an excellent way to improve your academic profile. As well being a chance to interact with your peers, it marks you out as influential within your discipline. The relationships you develop are likely to last beyond the publication of your Special Issue, establishing a broader network for future discussion and collaboration.

Previous Guest Editors have highlighted the following as being among the most rewarding aspects of assisting in the development of a Special Issue:

Being at the forefront of scientific communication

Exerting creativity in the inception and development of a theme

Assembling and working with a strong team of Editors

Handling manuscripts close to their personal interests

Gaining a better understanding of editorial processes

Networking with like-minded colleagues around the world

Forging new contacts and future collaborations with field leaders

Contribution to, and recognition from, the research community

Seeing articles from their Special Issue referenced and cited in future articles

Feeling they’ve contributed to development of the journal

The Guest Editorial team as a whole can contribute a maximum of four papers to their Special Issue. Of these four, an introductory short Editorial and a long review article are exempt from the journal’s regular Article Processing Charges (where applicable).

In recognition of the Guest Editors’ efforts, and to provide full transparency about the journal’s review process, the name of each Guest Editor who accepts a manuscript will be mentioned in the published version of the final article.

The entire editorial process of the journal is handled using our Manuscript Tracking System (MTS), which minimizes the time required from the Guest Editors. Our in-house editorial staff provide Guest Editors with any administrative assistance they may need. Members of Hindawi staff are responsible for contacting late reviewers, sending reminder emails to authors and reviewers, notifying authors of a Guest Editor’s decision, tracking down missing material, and various other administrative tasks.

Guest Editors are responsible only for the tasks that require their subject-specific expertise, such as selecting appropriate reviewers for submitted papers and making the final decision of accepting or rejecting a paper based on the review reports.

Typically, Article Processing Charges (APCs) are paid by the authors of each published paper. If you wish to provide financial support for contributing authors to cover the APCs, either yourself or via a third party, this must be raised with Hindawi staff at the point of proposing the Special Issue, or as soon as the possibility arises if the Call for Papers has already been issued. If approved, this may necessitate mention in the articles’ Conflict of Interest statements, and must be declared in the Editorial that accompanies the Special Issue.